


The Right Thing

by Skeren



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud is pulled back in time. To Nibelheim, years before he was even a thought in his mother's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Written June 2009. I might eventually continue this one, because the premise still intrigues me.

_I know you’ll do the right thing._

They weren’t exactly words in the way he was used to hearing words, not even from that voice. Since Aeris had died, he was sure he’d almost gone mad. Then again, later on he’d discovered he was already his own kind of crazy, so in a way, it was to say that he was going sane since then. 

But this? 

Do the right thing?

There were so many ways that this could be the _right thing_ that his mind hurt to just think of it. 

And he was expected to know, all on his own, how to do this. 

History had, for instance, never been his strong point. What he knew of it was patchy, old studies eaten by Mako, or learned from people like Cid and Vincent, people whose lives had gone flying off the track just as badly, or worse, than his own. In no way did that truly help him.

Not when he had to make choices that could ruin or glorify those very same people. 

Was it worth the risks?

He pushed up from his sitting position, staring down towards the town that was even tinier than he remembered. The town where he’d grown up and lost himself. The town he’d never wanted to see again. And his eyes were following a little girl. A blond little girl with hair just like his who couldn’t be more than twelve, thirteen, and definitely not an early bloomer. 

She wasn’t treated the nicest, he could see it from his vantage point, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep watching. It was too similar, and explained too many things, when he really didn’t _want_ that kind of reminder. 

But he had to do something. 

If he just stood here and waited, watching... then he’d be just as bad... no. He’d be worse than Sephiroth. 

He’d be causing all of it when at any time he could have _done_ something. When he could have stopped the bike from being turned on, so to speak. Nobody could stop him. He’d defeated a weapon, and here, now, there was no one to match him in physical power. 

But how would it all affect her? Nidara. His mother. What would he do to _her_ life if he stepped in now? He knew what would happen if he didn’t, and he felt terribly unprepared.

He knew he couldn’t be blamed for that. Aeris hadn’t had any warning to give him, just apologies and assurances as the Lifestream dragged him roughly away to here. Near the stream of it just up inside the cave that he used to like to visit as a child. 

But he wasn’t any child anymore, and too many things had stolen the simple wonder he’d felt then, in the future of this offset point in time. 

If it even was a different time and not something else stranger than that. Which was also fully possible. 

But he knew, with certainty, that he would learn nothing if he stayed in this spot, watching a blond girl be bothered by people who apparently never learned. 

Finally making a choice, he turned and started further up the mountain. First, seeing if the reactor existed. If it didn’t, then he had preventative measures to take.


End file.
